Chagrin Falls Middle School seventh-graders in Alison Hinesman and Emily Moore’s class participated in the CFMS first annual Toy Convention this past April
CFMS Toy Convention
Chagrin Falls Middle School seventh-graders in Alison Hinesman and Emily Moore’s class participated in the CFMS first annual Toy Convention this past April. Working alongside tech integration and instructional coach Molly Klodor, library media specialist Angie Jameson and Makerspace implementer Dave Kimball in the Creation Lab of the district’s Innovation Center, students created or modified a toy that demonstrated how energy transfers.
“Our goal was to encourage students to use and explore new tools and find new ways to create,” said Hinesman. “They used the design process foundations from Project Lead the Way to create a toy using the 3D printer and other equipment. Their toys were then judged in our first ever Toy Convention.”
Tiger Perk Students Visit Gurney
On April 28, approximately 38 Tiger Perk students from Chagrin Falls middle and high schools took a field trip to Gurney Elementary School. During their visit, they visited the classrooms to give presentations that include a video about Tiger Perk Cafe and talk about their work experience. There was also an opportunity for the younger students to ask questions.
Launched in 2018, Tiger Perk Cafe is a student-run coffee service that is a fun and functional job skills program to benefit Chagrin Falls’ students who have special needs.
Before the Tiger Perk students visited the elementary school, Gurney classroom teachers showed a video of high school student Zoe Jones reading the story “Just Ask: Be Different, Be Brave, Be You!” which celebrates everyone’s differences and goes along with the theme “Courage is my Superpower” as well as April’s District-wide theme of “the courage to take a risk and persist.”
The goals of the visit included sharing about the courage to persist and take a risk, recognizing differences are what make people special and that uniqueness is a super power.
“The high school and middle school Tiger Perk students were able to develop as leaders and connect with the elementary students. And Gurney staff members were able to reconnect with former students,” said Principal Rachel Jones.
Afterward, the teachers facilitated the start of a construction paper classroom banner where the students colored and wrote what makes them unique on the patches. During the Tiger Perk students’ visit, each elementary student had a chance to share what they wrote on their patch and the Tiger Perk students helped the Gurney students attach their patch to the class quilt.
Throughout the day, Tiger Perk students also prepared and delivered appreciation drinks for the teachers between their presentations. Each Gurney student received a Chromebook/water bottle Courage Superhero sticker.
Chagrin Falls Schools Earns Award for Sora Use
Library media specialist Angie Jameson partnered with Chagrin Falls High School English teacher Jean Kanzinger to bring Sora to the Chagrin Falls English curriculum for the entire 2021-22 school year, resulting in an award in the Global Schools Stars contest.
The Schools Stars global contest celebrates how schools promote Sora around the world. Created by Overdrive, Sora is a digital reading app for schools. .
Chagrin Falls Schools was selected as the Best Use of Sora in the Supporting Learning Objectives category. Jameson submitted a video outlining the Sora integration.
Throughout the school year, she and Kanzinger planned choice outside reading units for students. The units included genres such as science-fiction, graphic novels, verse novels and story collections. Jameson used funding from an ARPA grant to support each genre and its needs.
In December 2021, students participated in an audiobook unit, in which they used Sora to listen to a book and took digital notes including sketches to improve their digital literacy skills. This paired art and note taking while utilizing school iPads, funded by the Education Foundation.
Another curriculum example was linking Google Slides with Sora text directly so students could choose a novel or verse book from the slides and click to view the digital text.
Jameson said the lead times for delivery of physical books was excessive. “Without Sora we wouldn’t have seen success with this reading unit,” she said.
One of the larger projects involved high schoolers reading a picture book aloud and recording themselves reading it. In the submission video, Jameson showed clips of tenth graders JP Zimmer and Zoe Jones reading from their favorite childhood books. Students then used the design program Canva to create a postcard for the book, which included a QR code that Gurney Elementary students could scan to view the recorded reading.
A Sora sticker was included with each postcard to remind people of the Sora connection. Eighth-grader Maya Ochiai designed the sticker and printed it using the school’s wide format printer.
Jameson said the read aloud project was taken a step further when employees from the Tiger Café, a school café that employs both typical students and those with special needs, came to Gurney Elementary. Every student at Gurney watched Zoe Jones’ reading of “Just Ask” by Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, as part of a kickoff to a discussion on adversity, acceptance and kindness.
Jameson said the Sora opportunity “allowed us to bring Sora to our K through 3 building in ways that I could have never imagined at the beginning of the school year.”
Chinese Program Students Take Home Top Awards
Students from the 7-12 Chinese Program offered within Chagrin Falls Middle School and Chagrin Falls High School earned top awards from the eighth Ohio K-12 Chinese Essay Contest.
The Ohio K-12 Chinese Essay Contest is an annual competition for elementary, middle, and high school students from Ohio. During the March 2022 competition, students competed by composing an essay written in Chinese characters on a selected topic. The essays were then judged by experienced Chinese language teachers.
Nine students from Chagrin Falls Middle School and Chagrin Falls High School placed in this year’s competition:
Gold Award winners are seventh-grader Ethan Nielsen, eighth-grader Hailey Haddon, freshman Abraham Thurman and junior Marnie Demangone.
Silver Award winners are seventh-grader Bethany Vehar and eighth-graders Hailey Haddon and Rory Rohde.
Honorable mention winners are seventh-graders Anna Khudyakov, and Juliet Oliver and eighth-grader Layla Hauserman.
Spring Art Show
The Chagrin Falls Schools’ Spring Art Show was held April 28 through May 1 at Hamlet at Chagrin Falls. Hundreds of pieces of art from middle and high school students were on display.
At the award ceremony on April 28, Debbie Cirillo, executive director of Hamlet at Chagrin Falls, welcomed the students, families and Hamlet residents. Superintendent Jennifer Penczarski gave the opening remarks and introduced and thanked the talented art department staff. The awards presented to students were done by art teachers Libby Harrold, Dawn Serazin, Jill Eisert and Amy Fenton.
During the award ceremony, music was provided by students Mathew Leibold, Hanson Song, Trey Taylor, Jilian Vehar, Sofia Clark, Carter Kilby, Kate Stephenson and Lliam Baskette.
Award highlights include:
Valley Art Center Awards – Ella Publicover and Chloe Nightwine; Cleveland Print Room Black & White Film Award – Colin Weaver; Hamlet Best In Show – Annie Mills; Hamlet High School Gold – Ryan Hill; Hamlet High School Silver – Marie Kanzinger; Chagrin Falls Village Council – Charles Taylor; Dads’ Club Award – Hollie Markham, Tatum Yanchar and Andrew Thompson; Board Of Education Award – Sophia Avery; PTO Awards – Anna Baker, Elizabeth Rankin, Caitlyn Young and Wade Daugherty; Outstanding Photography/Computer Graphics – Ella Spremulli and Julia Stotter; Outstanding 2-D Artists – Celia Hawk and Jennie Wouters; Outstanding 3-D Artists – Delainey Wyville and Maya Rooney; High School Principal’s Award – Riley Myers; and Middle School Principal’s Award – Harper Stewart.
View all the award-winning artwork and videos at www.cfsartshow.com.
The co-chairs of this year’s show were Dr. Nancy Burnham and Beth Gresh.
Students who have committed to attending art school and/or studying visual arts after graduation include Delainey Wyville (College for Creative Arts – Art Education and Art Practice); Rose Hoelzel (animation/illustration); Smith McKee (University of Miami – architecture); Casper Calder (Cleveland Institute of Art – animation); Abigail Laws (fashion studies – Arizona State University); Mia Charlton (University of Cincinnati – Fine Arts); and Ella Publicover (art career bound).
Student Blends Years of AP Seminar and Research Work with 3D Portfolio Artwork
Junior Elizabeth Rankin wrote a paper last school year for her AP seminar class on the effects of fast fashion on the environment. She was intrigued by this subject and decided to explore the topic further this school year in her AP research class. She wrote her paper on the effects of the greenwash market by fast fashion companies on the purchasing habits of high school students. This work dovetailed into further exploring the effects of fast fashion in the form of an art project in her 3D portfolio art class.
Fast fashion is a business model designed to make trendy clothing available to the consumer at low prices. Greenwash marketing occurs when a company says it is environmentally conscious for marketing purposes, but is not making any notable sustainability efforts.
“This interdisciplinary learning experience reflects the personalized opportunities available to our students at Chagrin Falls Schools,” said Becky Quinn, director of curriculum and instruction. “Students like Elizabeth are able to maximize their potential in ways that are relevant, cohesive, and meaningful.
In the Chagrin Falls Schools’ Spring Art Show, Rankin received an award from the PTO for her pieces.
Klodor Wins Innovative Educator Award
By Katie Jones and Gus Bando, CFMS Tiger Tales’ Student Reporters
Chagrin Falls Exempted Village Schools Instructional Technology Coach Molly Klodor recently won the PBS Ideastream Innovative Educator Award.
Klodor accepted the award on April 12 at the ceremony where she presented the key to her success to the Ideastream audience and guest attendees.
For a chance to win this honor, nominees had to thrive as an innovative technology user as a teacher, and she was nominated by Director of Technology and Innovation Mike Daugherty and library media specialist Angie Jameson.
Daugherty chose to nominate Klodor because she has done an amazing job building relationships and serving the students, teachers, and staff across the whole district. Daugherty said, “Mrs. Klodor has been an excellent addition to our Chagrin team. We are lucky to have such a talented, caring individual in our district.”
So far at Chagrin Falls Schools, Klodor has accomplished many achievements. Klodor has been working on strengthening areas of communication. She said, “this year we have worked on improving how we communicate our technology and the tools that we have to the teachers.”
Klodor has accomplished a lot at Chagrin in one year, which has been really exciting for her. She also stated that this year she has worked on making a new website, making lots of new posters, and emailing with students and teachers more frequently. But what she found most enjoyable and most exciting was being able to get into different classrooms and create some new projects.
In addition, Klodor has recently been working on a science project with seventh-grade science teacher Alison Hinesman, seventh and eighth-grade science teacher Emily Moore and Angie Jameson.
Hineman said the team wanted to come up with a project for all seventh-grade science students that would allow them access to the Creation Lab. The idea of the project was that students would have the ability to use the innovation center to create a toy that utilizes energy transfers to work. Students were allowed to use any of the machines in the Creation Lab to create prototypes of their toys.
This is the first major project Klodor and Hinesman have worked on together, but Hinesman loved being able to see their ideas come to life. Hinesman said, “Mrs. Klodor was a huge asset in helping come up with a plan and developing the lesson materials we would use.”
Klodor’s day-to-day job at Chagrin is different every day. Some days she spends with classes like science and Project Lead The Way, but other days, when she doesn’t have a lot of classroom visits, she spends much of her time researching and finding new resources, communicating with teachers, and trying to build out plans for when she can be in their classes.
Klodor has impacted both students and staff during her first year in Chagrin Falls. Hinesman said, “she’s amazing at bouncing ideas off of and has pushed me to be a better educator.”
Students in the Project Lead the Way class learned about digital citizenship when Klodor served as a guest teacher. Eighth-grader Ethan Johnson said, “digital safety is extremely important in our generation, and I am glad we are able to learn about it at a young age.”
Another eighth-grader, Molly Macioch, stated, “It seemed like she was very happy to be doing her job and she seemed very passionate about what she was teaching, and I was able to learn about some other ways I can be safe online.” Klodor really knows her stuff and is very helpful.
Before Chagrin, she taught at Streetsboro City Schools for eight years, and while she was there she taught ninth-, 10th- and 12th-grade advanced placement English literature.
Klodor earned her undergraduate degree from Ohio University, and she has a master’s in curriculum and instruction, which she earned from Kent State University, and she is currently in school to get her Doctorate degree at the University of Findlay. Klodor plays a very important role in many digital initiatives throughout all of the Chagrin Falls Schools. If you see her, make sure to congratulate her on her award.
